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Thursday, July 19, 2007

14886-Give me liberty or die

I was talking with my wife one recent day about health care. She related to me someone's proposal to nationalize America's medical care. I suppose this is an issue that's just not going to go away. It's certainly not the first time I've heard it and I doubt it will be the last. The federal government isn't supposed to be involved in this and doesn't have a track record that shows it'll be able to run such a program to our benefit. This isn't to say it can't be done. Many countries have excellent healthcare programs that are nationalized and their people are very happy with them. They do not live in our country. We have a government that once took control of a brothel (through the IRS) and mismanaged it out of business. I can't even begin to fathom the depths of ineptness required to mismanage running a brothel. That alone should make enough of my point, since medical care is supposed to be for the benefit of those receiving care, nationalizing it isn't likely to put it into the best hands. Our federal government has an instruction book that defines how it's supposed to work. It's called the Constitution. It's the law of the land, but it gets ignored a lot. That's not the way the system is supposed to work. You don't sit down to a board game, play around the rules that everyone's agreed to and expect it to work right. If you don't like it, find another game. Oooh, listen to me, sounding all radical and conservative simultaneously. Face it, we have a lot of rule-breaking politicians in the game. Many seem to want to get into it, just to see how much they can cheat the system.Anyway, with our government being run that way (don't act like it's a surprise), the people who keep getting into it try to meddle in ever more areas outside the set boundaries. With more meddling comes more mess (classic red tape, price increases) and less of people taking care of their own affairs. Unfortunately, people receiving "free" stuff (actually, the stuff of others that's been legislated away from them in a Marxist redistribution of wealth), is one of the great lures of a governmentally run program. Under such relentless socialistic assaults, personal responsibility is very nearly dead. Once the ball gets rolling, people just keep asking the government to do more and more for them. "Somebody should do something!" "There oughta be a law!" Personally, I feel like we have plenty of laws already. I don't get up in the morning and phone a politician to ask how to get through my day. I wouldn't even ask one to hold my wallet for me, let alone housesit. Or babysit, there we go.One of the ongoing battles involves the efforts to use legislation to protect children from internet and television content. The danger of tarnished innocence is just a click away they tell us, whether it's from a remote control or a mouse. These cries always smack of hyperbole to me and make my eyes roll of their own volition. Whether the dangerous content is on your TV or on your computer, the safeguard is a simple one. Follow: it's YOUR television and YOUR computer. What shows up on them is up to YOU. You have the right to make those choices. These are rights that have been fought for and it is of criminally tragic proportion to give them up without as much of a fight. If you don't like what's on, change the channel or turn the thing off.Likewise, the law and the nature of Freedom saddles you with the burden of making decisions for your children. Anyone attempting to change that should make any responsible adult spew forth bile like a geyser from the depths of his enraged innards. They're your kids watching whatever on your stuff in your home. Should a bunch of strangers you wouldn't let babysit really be responsible for what you can watch? No. The solution is (write this down) that YOU pay attention to what your kids are doing and watching. No, you don't get to cop out and tell me you're too busy. I pay attention to what my kids are watching on TV, whether we're watching something together or not. I know what's in their video games and sometimes play them with them. They ask for permission to use the computer and are subject to having their shoulders peeked over frequently and randomly.Blame my parents. Yes, both my parents worked in demanding careers, but I still managed to have home cooked, balanced meals so often that I don't remember it not happening. With such dedication came parents who knew what my favorite TV shows were, what music I liked and sometimes even watched Saturday morning cartoons with me. We were also known to actually talk with each other and they encouraged me to read and...Well, the point is, be in control, don't hand it away. Exercise self-discipline and taking charge of your home will be easy. We have all the local cable channels available and high-speed internet. External media product is piped into our home daily and the only nakedness I see on a regular basis is my wife's. How is this possible? My choice. I click and click and click, yet I don't find myself accidentally staring at hours of erotica. Neither do the kids. Trust me on this. I don't sleep much, so I know. Maybe Congress is keeping me awake with all the noise they make. If only there were some way to keep those government guys under control. There oughta be a law.